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'FTL' Review: Dying Faster Than Light (PC)

FTL is one of the most challenging games of the year, and one of the best.

I must have a penchant for punishment, because lately I’ve been playing not just Dark Souls, but also Tokyo Jungle and more recently, FTL, or “Faster Than Light.”

FTL is like no other game I’ve played. It’s a space adventure roguelike. You command a ship and its crew and systems as you flee a pursuing fleet of rebel ships through the galaxy, traveling through alien systems, sensor-destroying nebulas, and shield-bashing asteroid fields.

And when you die, game over. Yes, yet another permadeath game to drive you crazy and keep you coming back for more…if you like the pain.

The game is text-based to a degree. Events are conveyed through text, and you occasionally have options with apparently random outcomes. For instance, you come upon a stranded ship about to go belly up and can decide if you want to try to dock on and save them, send a shuttle, or ignore them. Each outcome will result in different things. Maybe you’ll succeed and get a prize, or maybe the ship will be destroyed and you’ll salvage parts, or maybe you’ll take some damage to your own ship in the process.

In fact, the entire game is random, pitting you against some seriously tough situations with only your wits, and your preparedness, to save you. I still haven’t gotten the hang of it. Each time I think I’m doing well something goes horribly, horribly wrong.

I haven’t beaten the game yet, either. And I’ve only unlocked a second ship.

Each ship is unique. For instance, the second ship I acquired is the Engi ship. It’s equipped with different starting guns, an Anti-Ship drone, and a completely different crew. The Kestrel (your starting ship) is equipped with more powerful starting guns, a less diverse crew, and no drones or drone system.

Neither ship is necessarily better than the other, and each have distinct advantages over the other. The trick is upgrading them properly, which is a really tough thing to get a handle on. Do I spend my scrap (the game currency) on better gear? Do I spend it on power upgrades to the ship’s myriad systems? Do I hire more crew members or buy new drones?

This is made even more complicated by the game’s randomness. Stores are placed throughout each system, and each store will have different items to buy. But you’ll find out quickly that your resources are desperately limited and making the right choice can come down to a brutal combination of luck and experience, neither of which I have in great quantities.

All of which is to say that FTL has fantastic replay value. You can find it on Steam for ten bucks, or on sites like GOG.com for even less. This means that no matter how risky most of your engagements and decisions in the game may be, the purchase is at least a low-risk one.

As I delve deeper into space, assuming I can get the hang of it, I’ll post more updates. One of the most critical aspects of any game review, I believe, is whether the game can hold your attention for a long time. This is why Dark Souls is such a marvelous game, and why XCOM: Enemy Unknown is one of my favorite games of the year. I keep coming back for more…even if “more” so often takes the form of dying, repeatedly and without mercy.

FTL was developed by indie studio Subset games and launched earlier this year after an extremely successful Kickstarter drive. It’s a great example of a Kickstarter project that delivered on its promises. Whether it’s a game you’ll enjoy largely comes down to whether or not you ever wanted to be a captain on a spaceship. Firefly fans, Star Trek fans, roguelike gamers, and any fan of seriously challenging games should find much to love.

Oh, and it has a lovely electronic soundtrack as well. As someone not typically fond of electronic music, I’ve been surprised with how much I like it. But the music fits the game like a well-tailored suit. Even the sounds of rockets exploding and lasers blasting meld with the music, making the sounds of combat almost beautiful.

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But I cant always get to the final boss. In fact, I find it incredibly easy to get to the final boss as long as you just get two shields and two good weapons. It took me several tries to figure out a good system, but once you get that, it’s easy.

My biggest problem is that the final boss is 10 times harder than any other enemy in the game. Which I do find pretty obnoxious. I enjoy a good, difficult game, but I expect the difficulty progression to at least make sense. The spike in difficulty at the end just seems too high.

I finally managed to beat this game with the Engi cruiser, after about 50 tries. Getting cloak and a really powerful beam did the trick along with a couple of lasers to take down shields. It`s jolly hard and frustrating at the same time though, yet strangely obsessing. A great title for ten bucks at any rate. Highly recommended.